


Of Ruffles and Rampages

by tothineownelfbetrue



Series: The Way You Look Tonight [1]
Category: Disenchantment (TV 2018)
Genre: Awkwardness, Bean just wants to be respected, Bean just wants to get laid, Coming of Age, Elfo is a definite fashion don't, F/M, I mean it. Really slow, Pre-Relationship, Setting Boundaries, Slow Burn, Sven (Disenchantment), Swordfighting, a bit of bg character deaths, as per the episode, covers the events of ep4, friends to lover, land vikings, no beta we die like men, obligatory throwing a party in an effort to hook up, references to vomiting, they're a bunch of kids who need to learn to grow up, viking rampages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23657665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothineownelfbetrue/pseuds/tothineownelfbetrue
Summary: Relationships aren't defined by what you wear, but sometimes seeing someone in something new can give you a different perspective on them.Or: Bean and Elfo's relationship as seen through fashion choices
Relationships: Bean | Tiabeanie/Elfo (Disenchantment)
Series: The Way You Look Tonight [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703407
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is part one of The Way You Look Tonight. It contains the events of Part 1, ep 4: "Castle Party Massacre".
> 
> The rest of this fic is complete and will be uploaded soon!

-

She’d never thrown a party before. It was one of the reasons that - despite Luci’s constant assertion that he was going to give her bad advice - she was more than willing to listen to the demon’s suggestions on how to do so. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a little dubious, sometimes.

“You’re sure this is how it works?” She looked over the room where some of the hapless servants were moving around the furniture. “You’re not just doing this to get me in trouble?” The one thing about Luci that she appreciated most was the fact that he was fully willing to let her know when he was telling her to do something bad… he just encouraged it anyway.

“Bean.” Luci let out a snort of breath. “You’re already going to get in trouble for this party. That’s the point. But there’s no point in getting in trouble for having a lame party. Of course, I’m going to make sure this is the biggest bash you could possibly have in this tiny ass kingdom. So yes. This is how it works. Trust me.” He looked over at where two servants were shuffling a table against the wall. “Hey, you! Move it over to the right some more! What is this? Amateur hour?”

Since Luci seemed to have the organization of the room well in hand, Bean was left in charge of the other arrangements. She frowned, scuffing her feet against the floor before she took a few steps closer to where Elfo was sitting.

He’d been a bit less enthusiastic about all of this than his two companions, even though Luci had persuaded him to go along with it. He seemed to be alternating between a sort of tense excitement and near panic. At the moment he was sitting on the table with his legs dangling down, slowly staring at and flexing his right arm.

“Hey, Elfo.” Bean began, as conversationally as she could manage. “What are you doing? Are you busy?”

He looked up at her, brows furrowed, his fingers curling and uncurling. “Oh. Hey Bean.” His voice was soft, almost wistful. “I’m just enjoying having my good arm for a little bit.” As much as Bean didn’t think her dad would actually be stupid enough to chop Elfo’s arm off, there was still always that slight possibility. He was pretty dumb. Either way, Elfo’s obvious distress was more than enough to make her feel a little uncomfortable.

But she didn’t want to think about that. She cleared her throat, searching for words to lighten the mood and - more importantly - to keep her mind off of any notions of feeling guilty over this. She was nineteen, for god’s sake and she’d never thrown a party. Not once in the five years since they’d been invented. That had to be some kind of travesty. Besides, Elfo could probably have used a little lightening up. She liked the elf, but he was so uptight a lot of the time. He didn’t know how to enjoy himself.

This would be good for him, she reasoned. Besides, it wasn’t like she was actually planning to let her dad find out about any of it. She had a certain amount of self-preservation after all and she didn’t want to listen to him go on and on about how she wasn’t a proper princess and how she was a pain in his ass. Better to just let him live in blissful ignorance of her fun.

It occurred to her that she was probably listening a bit too much to Luci lately, but… eh, whatever. She didn’t care. She was having a party!

“It’ll be fine, Elfo. Really. People do this stuff all the time.” She tried to sound confident about her facts, even though she actually had no idea. She turned her back to him, walking back over to the table where she had all the planning stuff laid out. “I’ve been wanting to do this for ages.” Luci padded past her, going to hop up on the table beside Elfo. Maybe he’d be able to get through to the elf more easily than she had.

Either way, she turned her attention to the actual planning. She wanted to be sure to invite plenty of guys. She’d be damned if she wasn’t going to find someone to hook up with during this party, especially considering she’d had the misfortune of several men getting scared off by Zog and his threats about decapitation. The cowards. Like a little decapitation was such a big deal.

Elfo and Luci were talking behind her. She could hear the occasional shift in Elfo’s pitch that made his voice rise high and shrill. Normally she would have been paying a bit more attention since it was more interesting than having to slog through her usual days in her dad’s court, but at the moment the scribe was there, ready to start putting out announcements and she wanted to make sure to get this part right.

“Okay… so first off… guest list.” Bean mused aloud to the bored-looking scribe whose quill scratched at the parchment in steady strokes. “No Dreamland dudes.” She’d been down that road enough to know that it wasn’t going to get her anyway. “They’re too scared of Zog. Also, they’re kind of plaguey…” she shuddered a little at a memory of a not-so-hot date that had ended in disaster. “And I just… I can’t deal with lips falling off when I kiss people right now.” Surely it wasn’t too high a bar to aim for? Just…. no body parts falling off.

Behind her, Elfo and Luci had fallen silent for a moment while she was listing things off to the scribe. She was only half paying attention as Elfo let out a soft laugh, barely audible. “Oh… sounds like Bean may prefer a mysterious stranger…”

Yeah, maybe. She could do mysterious, as long as it wasn’t someone totally gross. It wasn’t like she was asking for all that much. She was running over things in her head while her two companions continued to jabber on in the background, only briefly glancing over at the mention of her name. They weren’t looking at her though, so it was probably something incidental. Elfo was talking about wanting to watch the sunrise with a girl and Bean couldn’t help the slight twitch of her lips at that. So simple, Elfo. She wished she could be happy with something so low key, but really, she was a teenager with rampaging hormones and she wanted a little more out of life than watching the sunrise. She cleared her throat as she turned back to the scribe. “Okay, so, we’re gonna need this announced all over the place. We want to get the most people we can…”

Or rather, the most opportunities for Bean to find someone. The man stared at her with that blank, emotionless expression that had her wondering if he’d even heard her, but then he gave a slight curt nod of his head before rolling the scroll and easing out of the room.

Well. That was it then. This was really going to be a thing. Even with the decorating they’d already started, under Luci’s confident direction, she was coming to the realization that she hadn’t seriously believed this could actually happen. And now it was. Her heart jumped in her throat, excitement shivering through her.

“This… this is gonna be so good,” she said, turning back to the boys, grinning like an idiot. “I can hardly wait!”

The two of them looked back at her, Elfo with a hesitant smile, his nails scraping against the wooden table he was sitting on and Luci with a wide smirk. The demon hopped up onto Bean’s shoulder, sitting with his tail swishing behind him, occasionally swiping against Bean’s hair. “Let’s finish up on those decorations, huh?” Luci grinned as he leaned over. “We’ve got to make sure this is the biggest bash this depressing little kingdom has ever seen!”

Bean nodded. At this point, she was buzzing so much that she almost felt like she’d had something to drink but it was all adrenaline. That was right. They were going to do this. She barely even noticed that Elfo didn’t follow as she left the room to head down to the ballroom. There was a lot of work to be done in just a few hours.

-

Under Luci’s tuition, she thought she’d done a pretty good job if she did say so herself. The room was decorated, maybe a little less lavishly than for a royal gala but this wasn’t about some stuffy formal event. It was good enough. There was a stage set up for live music - Luci had assured her that he’d found someone who was willing to step away from their normal job to entertain their guests for a mere pittance - and snacks were already starting to be carried up. Bean had raided the cheese cave, knowing that her dad never went down there and she could probably swipe at least three-hundred cubes worth of cheese without him even noticing.

She crossed her arms as she stood in the doorway, surveying everything with a certain air of pride. Luci came up alongside her, leaning against her leg with a lazy, “What up?”

“Got everything all set up.” She said, having to restrain herself to keep from crowing a little. She was proud of what she’d accomplished though. Not bad for a girl who’d never thrown a huge awesome party before. “I think it’s all looking good. We’ve got this.” She glanced down at him. “So, you ready?”

“I’m a demon,” Luci replied breezily, “We’re always ready for some good old-fashioned debauchery. It’s prudes like Elfo that you’ve gotta worry about.”

Oh yeah. Now that Luci was bringing up their elf companion, it struck Bean to wonder what was going on with him. Was he off hiding somewhere? She hadn’t actually spotted him at all during this preparation for the event and it occurred to her that he might have run off in an effort to distance himself from the party. The thought made her frown a little and she bit her lip. “So, about Elfo….”

Luci looked up at her, eyes half-lidded and a slight tweak of amusement at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you worry about him. He’s on his way. Just took a little work to get him ready.”

She wasn’t sure what kind of ‘work’ Luci might be referring to, but she had some suspicions. “Did you blackmail him again?” It wouldn’t have been the first time. Luci had told her flat out that blackmail was a time-honored demon tradition.

“What?” Luci gave her a look of affront that was far too exaggerated to be anything but sarcasm on his part. “Blackmail? I’ll have you know that only weak-willed losers have to resort to something as sloppy and lowbrow as blackmail. I thought I taught you better than that.” He pulled a cigarette out of nowhere and brought it to his lips, lighting it with the glowing ember tip of his tail before letting out a long puff of smoke. “It was extortion. That shit takes some real finesse.”

Bean wrinkled her nose at that, glancing at Luci sidelong. She knew better than to ask if he was serious because he’d just give her the runaround. The important question was already answered anyway. It was a little thing, but she felt more relaxed doing this crazy thing if she had her friends backing her. It was a weird sensation when she’d always had to rely on herself.

“Come on.” Luci padded toward the throne room. “Let’s do a last-minute check. We should have guests arriving soon.” He was the expert, for the moment Bean was perfectly happy to follow his suggestions. As they entered the room, there were still a couple of servants hanging banners. Near the center of the room, there were some of the knights, setting up. 

So, this was who Luci’d gotten? Well, they’d definitely work for a pittance… one that Luci probably wasn’t even paying because they technically already worked for her dad and this could technically count as serving the royal family. She was a little surprised any of them knew how to play though, considering their position. “You guys have a band?” They even had their own name too, which was doubly amusing, “I didn’t know you were interesting.”

“We mostly play corn exchanges but sometimes people look up from what they’re doing.”

Bean didn’t know a lot about actual corn exchanges, but it did ring a bell. “Wow. Maybe someday you’ll play Cornchella.”

As she was talking, she heard the familiar sound of cobbled shoes against the stone and turned with a smile, looking down as Elfo came up to the two of them. He was dressed mostly in his normal attire, save for one notable addition. The ruff around his neck was amusingly large, but it was kind of adorable. The bigger surprise, honestly, was in what he was saying.

“Hey guys. Has the party started or is the most eligible bachelor already here?” He was almost strutting, which was ridiculous given his short legs, but also kind of fit with that giant fancy ruff he was wearing. 

Beside them, Luci seemed a bit less than impressed. “I don’t know.” He drawled, deliberately bland. “Has literally anyone other than you arrived.”

Bean leaned down, unable to keep the huge smile from pulling at her lips as she let out a small coo. She couldn’t help it. He looked small and squishable but in a good way. “Aww… I think he looks cute.” She pondered for a second on a comparison and settled on one that didn’t really make any sense one she thought about it. “Like the mayor of Babyville.” That was probably a thing somewhere.

Elfo’s shoulders hunched a little in the way that told her he was embarrassed and he half turned away from her, arms moving to cross in front of his chest. This was a much more familiar pose for him than the more confident strut of earlier. “Why do you always have to compare me to a cute baby?” He whined out in a way that wasn’t at all conducive to thinking of him like he wasn’t something tiny and adorable. “I’m a cute man!”

His outraged squeakiness finally compelled her to give in to the temptation she had a lot of the time she was around him, leaning down further to press her hands against his soft cheeks, smooshing them. He was warm to the touch, almost silky. It was a very different texture than anything else she usually touched. Even royal clothing in dreamland tended to be made of materials that wound up a bit coarse, and the closest comparison she could think of to Elfo’s skin was actually the fancy silk pillows on her bed. He was more warm and pliable though, squirming in her touch and giggling in a way that just made her want to squish him even more.

She couldn’t quite rein in the grin on her face as she continued to stroke her hands against his cheeks. He always looked cuddleable, like a small animal. He was definitely more cuddly than Luci who was soft and furry and gave her the most scathing glares whenever she tried. It wasn’t until Elfo struggled against her grasp, pulling away with a howl like an angry dog. “Stop it!”

She drew back, startled, her breath caught in her throat for a second as she took in the way he stood stiff and agitated. If he had fur it would have been standing on end to make his small body look as big as possible. She bit her lip, feeling a brief stab of embarrassment and guilt. “Sorry.” She said after a moment of pause, clearing her throat. “Just got caught up for a moment…” She wasn’t sure what else to say, her eyes on him where he was staring at her, ruffled and wary for a few seconds before he settled again with a soft sigh. 

“It’s… it’s okay.” He moved to brush himself off with his hands, though he didn’t edge in any closer. She nodded and the two of them stared at each other. She was caught in her own thoughts for a second, not sure what to do after the rebuke. Elfo waited, fidgeting with the front of his shirt before letting out a breath and turning toward her again, letting his hand pat awkwardly at her arm. “It’s fine. I’m just…” He made a small sound, like a squeak. “I’ve never been to a party before…” He confided softly.

“Yeah.” She felt some of the tension bleed from her muscles. “Neither have I. But I’m sure lots of kids have had these things before and figured it out. Like… for sure a dozen kids by now. If they can manage, so can we.” To her relief, Elfo nodded in agreement. At least he wasn’t mad at her. He rarely got riled by anything and he tended to be quickly forgiving but she didn’t want to start off her very first party on the wrong foot.

Luci cleared his throat and the sound caught her attention. She jolted, looking over at the demon who’d been watching this entire encounter with narrowed eyes. His foot was tapping at the ground and he let out a huff of a breath as they turned toward him. “Finally. If you two dumbasses are done being all nicey together, we can get on with it. Everything is ready to go and it’s almost time to start letting people in.”

Was it? Already? Bean felt her heart starting to race again, the familiar excitement that always accompanied instances where she was going to do something that would probably wind up with her locked up in her room again. There was also a warm pull further down in her body reminding her of how she was hoping the evening would end up playing out for her. Yeah. She definitely needed this.

-


	2. Chapter 2

-

With the party underway, she was expecting things to continue to proceed smoothly for her. She’d sent out the invite to plenty of people, surely there had to be _someone_ coming who wasn’t afraid of her dad. But when she approached the knight standing at the drink table, one of the few who wasn’t often to be found hanging out with the head of the knights and hopefully thus unaware of her father’s temper when it came to Bean’s dalliances, she found herself rebuffed far more quickly than expected.

Yeah, sure… she was pretty unique in appearance. Her white hair made her stand out, even without taking her buck teeth into account… but still. There had to be some idiot in the realm who didn’t know she was the princess. She wasn’t even wearing a gown!

But no. Everyone knew her. 

She grew increasingly desperate as the night went on. The music was a steady hum in the background as she went from guy to guy. No matter what the tactic, she faced rejection at every turn. She leaned her back against a pillar, her eyes traveling across the other party-goers who were having a much better time of it than she was. They were all getting to come and hang out and have fun… but she was the one throwing the damn thing and she couldn’t get even a second glance from someone.

She looked around for her companions. Luci had been flitting in and out of the crowd for a couple of hours now. She had no idea what he was up to, but knowing the demon it was probably going to have some kind of evil intent to it. She didn’t begrudge him… being evil was kind of his whole thing and he’d helped her out a lot over the course of getting this set up. It wasn’t his fault that people knew her on sight. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to ask Luci to dance with her or something, if he even would have…

Bean blinked as a thought flitted across her mind. She clenched her fingers in the bottom hem of her shirt for a moment, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth as the thought solidified in her mind despite her belated efforts to push it away. Luci wasn’t much for dancing and he was stand-offish unless he was demanding attention… but when it came to being friendly and wanting to try new things, there was one person who would probably have been up for it.

Elfo loved doing things with her and Luci. He was also an elf and they were jolly, weren’t they? They were always dancing and singing in the stories and she’d never seen anything Elfo had done to contradict everything Bunty had read to her over the years. She didn’t see him out on the floor dancing, but it was probably because he was afraid of getting trampled by all of the much larger people.

Plus, her dad needed Elfo around for his blood, so at least he couldn’t murder him… right?

It was probably a stupid notion. She was so much taller than him anyway, how would it even work? But she was pretty sure he wouldn’t turn her down and she was getting desperate for a dance with someone… anyone. Even if it was just one of her weird friends, that would at least give her something on her list she could cross off.

And if she wasn’t going to get laid tonight, at the very least she was owed this, right? Just one dance.

She forced herself to move before she could think better of the idea, going away from the throng to search for Elfo. His purple hat and the weird ruffle he’d decided to wear should have made him easier to find, but the dim light was making it harder to spot him. She was forced to ease to the side as some more Rubenesque dancers almost barrelled into her in their enthusiasm, her back hitting the wall near the food tables. She stood there for a moment, waiting for the crowd to thin slightly, then blinked as she caught sight of movement from the corner of her eye.

Speak of the elf. There he was, edging in her general direction while not wandering too far from the relative safety of the furniture.

Bean shuffled a little in his direction, though now that she was actually presented with the likelihood that she was about to ask her weird non-human friend to dance, she was feeling more than a little awkward. He was probably going to say no, given her luck. And he never said no when she asked him to do stuff… even embarrassing things or stuff that involved getting into trouble with the law. She was somehow convinced it would happen anyway, just because that was how her night was going. So she was making an effort to not get too invested in the notion. 

Whatever his evening had been like, he was acting strange as he came up to her, more resolute than she’d seen him in a while. He actually reached out to tap her on the shoulder, something that was only possible because he was already standing on the table and that put them almost eye to eye for once. She turned, surprised at the gesture, her mouth open for a moment before she snapped it shut.

Right. This was the moment. “Oh! Elfo…” She struggled through the words for a second, trying to find some way that wasn’t going to come across as either overly needy or overly desperate. “Look at the two of us… just standing around… just a couple of single so-and-so’s….” It already wasn’t going well and her ‘casual’ tone was more than a little off even to her own ears. She was almost ready to cringe back but she forced herself to keep going, “Standing over here by the cheese-” Her voice cut off as she actually looked at the table.

What had once been a rather impressive display of dairy products was now simply an empty tray. Had she somehow underestimated how much a crowd of this size could eat? “Wow, what happened?” She wondered aloud, for the moment forgetting that she was in the middle of a painfully forced conversation that was probably going to end with her asking her elf friend to a ridiculous dance, “There were like… three hundred cheese cubes here…” She would have kept going and probably just made the situation even more difficult somehow, but then Elfo was stepping in. 

He seemed to have his own goals in mind for how to make their interactions weird because he shuffled slightly from foot to foot before giving an exaggerated cough to clear his throat. He looked at her, but sidelong, his hands clenching slightly in front of him. “Oh, Bean…. Bean, Bean, Bean…” She wrinkled her nose at this repeated use of her name. “When I left Elfwood, I had no idea why…” As Elfo launched into what felt like a weird tangent, Bean struggled to wrap her mind around what he was actually trying to say. He was just so awkward that Bean had to resist the urge to squish his cheeks again. “I don’t know how to say this…” 

She could relate to that, she smiled, trying to be reassuring, even as she had no idea what he was actually talking about. “Go ahead. Say it.” Bean expected him to follow up with something, after that hesitant lead-in, but the words that actually came out were not what she’d expected.

“I’m into big girls.”

“What?” The word popped out without her thinking about it, but it was really all she had on her mind.

  
  


“When I left, I didn’t have any idea that my size… my stature… was… what do you call it?” His eyes flicked up to meet hers, and she wrinkled her nose.

“Dinky?”

  
  


“What?!” Elfo stared at her for a second before casting his gaze down with a slight grimace. “I-I don’t know if I’d say… dinky…” He was shuffling awkwardly at her choice of words and she did feel a little bad about it, but it was true, right? She didn’t really see why it was such a big deal. So he was small. That was kind of to be expected since he was an elf. She’d assumed they were all this size. He was rubbing at his arm a little, some of the earlier confidence bleeding out of his tone, leaving him quieter as he cleared his throat, no longer looking directly at her. “I guess… I guess what I’m trying to get at… and not so eloquently… C-could you ever go out with a guy who’s… dinky?”

Such a weird thing to ask. Somehow the words floated across the top of her awareness without ever really sinking in deep. She didn’t think it was likely that she’d ever even had that come up as a possibility since Elfo wasn’t even human. She’d never thought about it before… not really. Thinking about Elfo in that manner was a little bit like thinking about some kind of animal… or… well, okay, not an animal because that would have been weird…

But not like… a person, at least. Not like someone who was actually potentially romantic. He was just so...so…

So Elfo. There really was no other adequate description. Still, she couldn’t help a small, wry smile at this completely unhelpful conclusion. She looked him over, her brain still trying to wrap itself around the thought as she spoke, the words falling hesitantly from her lips. “Well… I have been drinking a lot tonight…so it might just be the grog talking...” And she was drunk, wasn’t she? Given how her night had gone, it wasn’t surprising that she’d been drinking throughout, though she was more buzzed than outright drunk. “But… you know… I think maybe I-” 

As her own words reached her ears, she felt the jolt of surprise. It was her voice but it didn’t sound like her at all… she hadn’t meant to say that, had she? She paused in the middle of a breath, her mouth open slightly as though there were some words to follow that, but before she could find them, there was the slam of the doors to the throne room being kicked open and everything went to hell.

There were several of the Vikings, looking tough and masculine and very ready for a fight. Bean tensed, expecting her very first party to be completely wrecked by these party crashers. She might have been almost drunk enough to ask her elf friend to dance, but she wasn’t anywhere near drunk enough to deal with Vikings. It was a matter she would need to rectify, and as Elfo moved to scramble down to the floor, effectively ending their conversation, she made her way over to the table and grabbed another drink. She downed it in two gulps before grabbing another.

It did make her feel a little better, honestly. The buzz of the alcohol was spreading throughout her body and she was starting to feel that slight sense of being distant from herself. It was better than the down feeling she’d been dealing with at the constant rejection from everyone she’d talked to. Even Elfo had just… left… after being incredibly weird. 

And that was just another thing she wasn’t sure about and didn’t know if she wanted to try and ponder on for long. Elfo had come to her with his strange speech about his stature and leaving Elfwood and things she was pretty sure had to do with his own lack of love life. She knew it had been rhetorical, that he was probably just looking for some reassurance that he wasn’t going to wind up completely without any romantic partners now that he wasn’t in Elfwood anymore. As much as she wanted to be a good friend, to say that ‘of course he could find someone’, the sad fact of the matter was that it was Dreamland and the people were… kind of racist.

Besides, it was hard to reassure him of his prospects when she couldn’t even manage to get laid herself, and she was objectively a pretty good catch.

In any case, his issues with finding a girlfriend - big or otherwise - were just one more thing that had been dropped right into her lap. She didn’t need this… She wasn’t prepared to handle someone else’s problems on top of her own. The most she could do was drink and hope that it would all go away.

With the alcohol beginning to sing in her veins, it was finally starting to not seem so bad. 

Maybe that was her mistake… she’d come to party but she hadn’t bothered to get drunk. She’d have to ask Luci about it later since he knew more about parties, but for the time being she was planning to just roll with it.

It was how she found herself perched atop the back of a horse. She’d been on the way down to grab another keg of ale and then she’d seen the beast through the window into the courtyard. Getting the horse to go up the stairs had been surprisingly easy and she looked down on the world from her new perch, her glass of ale held high in her hand as she entered the party again. All eyes were on her this time and she beamed. 

Finally, she was the center of attention! Finally! This was her party, damn it!

Bean called out to the adoring crowd, downing a few more gulps of her drink as she nudged the horse to push through the gathered partygoers. She might have been in danger of trampling some of them but she didn’t give a damn. Then her mount was drawn up short, dancing and bucking slightly under her, forcing her to cling a little more tightly to the animal to keep her balance. A pair of big strong Viking hands caught at the horse’s neck, steadying the beast.

Her eyes went to the man’s hands, then up the length of his body. He was muscular, this Viking, definitely more well built than the average dreamland guy. She couldn’t say much about his relative intelligence - he was a Viking, after all - but it didn’t really matter. He was good enough looking to catch her interest and his smarts wouldn’t really matter for what she wanted. Bean took Sven’s hand as he led her horse toward the throne, holding his gaze for a second as he plopped himself into Zog’s throne. She flicked her tongue across her lips, considering what she was going to say, but then Elfo interrupted her unabashed staring.

When had he gotten up on the dais? But he was moving up toward her father’s throne with a surprising amount of boldness for the usually timid little elf. Her brow quirked slightly as his voice rose, sharp and arching, “Excuse me! Please don’t sit in the king’s chair. That’s for his royal ass only!”

“Hmf. Kings. I fear no kings.” It was exactly the words she’d hoped to hear from some guy in all the time she’d been at this party, and even before that. Everyone had been terrified of Zog, to the point where she hadn’t been able to get any of them to even look in her direction for longer than it took them to recognize who she was. Apparently, for this man - what was his name again? Did it even matter? - that wasn’t an issue.

She slid from the back of her horse and moved to approach him. “You seem unafraid of kings,” she began, her mind focusing primarily on the most appealing feature of the Viking. She added, though mostly as an afterthought, “And probably have other features.”

Yeah. This was going better than she could have hoped for. The awkwardness of the rest of the party was put aside. She didn’t have to worry about the rejections from before or think about any weird conversations with her friends. All that mattered was that she was finally about to get some action… She deserved this, damn it.

-

But when they got back to her room, things started to get iffy again. Bunty was there, but Bean was able to handle that situation smoothly and she wasn’t expecting her [manservant] to cause any troubles for her. She slid her hands along the warm bare skin of the Viking's chest as he moved to pin her to the bed, her legs squeezing around his middle. 

Yeah, this was the stuff…

Then she heard the slight patter of tiny feet against the stone floor, a familiar sound. She would have ignored it if it hadn’t been immediately accompanied by Elfo’s voice. He was acting like a little jerk, interrupting her like this. But he’d had his chance to dance earlier and he’d been weird about it… why was he jumping in now? She was starting to suspect that maybe he was mad at her for some reason that she didn’t understand and she didn’t feel particularly generous when she was in the middle of trying to get laid. Didn’t he get that this had been the entire point of the evening?

“Oh hi, Bean. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” It was as blatant a remark as she’d ever heard from the elf and he followed it up by climbing up onto the bed where she and Sven were currently rolling around and trying to grind against each other. Bean propped herself up on her elbows as she felt the man atop her hesitating in confusion. “Mind if I sit on the bed?”

God damn it. She didn’t need this right now. “What are you doing?!” She blurted out, feeling an intense urge to grab the scrawny elf by the scruff and toss him out of the door. This wasn't part of the plan!

The Viking man seemed as confused as she was, but for other reasons. “You allow your chimp on the bed?” He really didn’t get it and Bean would have found that a lot more annoying if she wasn’t busy being pretty damn pissed at Elfo for whatever he thought he was doing.

“Elf, actually. Common mistake.” Elfo was continuing the meaningless conversation with his clarifications and Bean twitched her fingers, caught up in the strong urge to wring his neck. Yet he continued. “Can you pass me a pillow? My back hurts when my body’s filled with rage.”

Worst of all, her Viking companion was actually falling for this diversion! “Oh, it’s not healthy to store that…” The man even moved to guide Elfo to rest back against the pillows. She might have been more understanding - she had been plenty sympathetic to Elfo’s woes in the past when it involved him being experimented on or otherwise knocked about by humans - but right now all she could see was that he was being a shitty friend and deliberately getting in the way of her attempts to hook up.   
  


“Elfo... “ her voice was rough with warning, “Get out of my room.” It would have taken a real idiot to not get the hint she was trying to get across. Hell, it wasn’t even a hint. If looks could kill, the elf would have been stabbed through several times by now.

But, of course, Elfo was an idiot. She didn’t know why she’d ever thought he wasn’t… maybe it was just that in comparison to most people in Dreamland, his lack of knowledge seemed to be mostly because of his sheltered upbringing and not from being a moron. This confirmed it though. Elfo was definitely not bright. The only other explanation was that he had a suicide wish or simply enjoyed being strangled for some reason. She’d heard that was a thing. Either way, he crawled across the bed to stretch out on the pillow, right between her and her male companion.

“This is your room?” Sven was only just now getting with the program, sitting straight up and looking at her. That forbidding expression, dangerous as it was, might have been arousing under different circumstances. “You are the princess?!”

“Elfo…” Bean gritted through her teeth. “I’m going to kill you.”

Elfo must have noticed her expression, finally and he smiled in the face of her rage in a way that had her clenching her fists. Her arm tensed, about ready to punch him in the teeth if he kept giving her that look. Self-satisfied. It was a look she was used to seeing on Luci but not on Elfo. Somehow that expression was a lot worse when it wasn’t coming from a literal demon. 

“Um...You can’t kill me.” Elfo said, breezily. As if her threat against him was unimportant. Not that he was wrong about it, as he was so quick to point out, looking at the Viking with a conspiratorial smile. “Her dad needs me for the elixir of life. It’s kinda like insurance.”

That damned elixir. He was right though, she was pretty impotent with the threat of Zog’s future wrath hanging over her head. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t still be pissed about it. And - a little mental voice that sounded an awful lot like Luci was quick to point out - it wasn’t like she couldn’t _hurt_ him. As long as she didn’t _kill_ him.

She might have continued along that train of thought if the Viking hadn’t frozen at Elfo’s worse, looking at Bean, then at Elfo. “The elixir of life?!” Oh no. Not another one of those. Sven slid one large, powerful hand beneath her chin for a moment, looking at her with an expression she knew. She wasn’t going to be getting laid tonight. “Your snowy hair and stormy breath remind me of my homeland. You’ve been a comfort, but my priorities have changed.”

Bean wished she could be surprised by it, but as much as her simmering anger was making it hard for her to focus on what the man was actually saying, it was probably one of the most eloquent letdowns she’d ever had. She let out a sharp breath as the big warm leather-clad hand slid away from her and the Viking left the room, leaving her sitting on the edge of her bed with Elfo behind her being a smug little bastard. “Sven, wait!”

As soon as the Viking was gone and she was no longer in any danger of potentially scaring him off by being open in her fury, she rounded on the elf. “What is your problem, man?!” Her voice was louder and higher than usual, a near-screech of frustration. “This weekend was my one chance at freedom and you ruined it!” She couldn’t even look at him anymore. “You’re just like my dad! You are just a little green Zog!” As she rose from the bed, she went straight for the door, her thoughts in a repeating loop, reminding her that this had all been hopeless. Useless. God, why had she ever thought this was anything other than a terrible idea? 

She would have blamed Luci for it, but he wasn’t even here and this was an idea she’d mostly had on her own anyway. There was nothing for it but to get rid of the rest of the people at the party so she could have some time to brood alone. At the very least, she would have the satisfaction of knowing that all the guys who’d turned her down for a dance would get their own evenings cut short.

She could hear Elfo’s cobbled shoes on the stairs behind her. It was a different sound than most Dreamland residents, both lighter and for the odd ring of the elf-made material. She didn’t have to look to know he was wringing his hands, she could hear it in his voice. He was upset. Fine. She didn’t have a lot of sympathy for him at the moment, considering how badly he’d just screwed her over. If only he would have quit trying to talk to her, she would have been able to go about with sinking deep into the bowels of her misery in peace.

“I’m sorry!” He called out, scrambling to keep up. 

Sorry. Yeah.

“I was too aggressive!” Elfo was continuing, almost falling over himself while trying to both talk and match her pace. “I’ll go back to being passive-aggressive… because that worked _so_ well.”

“Too late.” She closed her eyes, so used to maneuvering throughout the castle when drunk that she didn’t need to see the stairs to navigate them. Elfo had been an asshole but he was just so bad at dealing with people anyway, she wondered if he even understood why she was mad. At least if it were Luci she would have known that it was on purpose. Was she just banging her head against a wall by expecting anything more from him? 

_Like what? She wasn’t sure what more she could expect?_

“Tonight’s turned into a carriage wreck…” She let out a long sigh. “I just want to send people home so I can curl up with my favourite book.”

“The hollowed-out one with the booze inside?” Bean felt an involuntary twitch at the corner of her mouth at that. Even if he was a pain in her ass and a total cock-block, he still knew her pretty well. Maybe that was why his actions were so frustrating to her.

“Yeah. I can’t put it down.” She wondered if he was bright enough to get what she meant, decided she didn’t have the time or energy to care right now. She sighed, hitting the bottom of the stairs and diverting to the throne room. Time to end this whole mess. “Party’s over! Everyone out!! Come on guys, look alive-” She was only half paying attention, too caught up in her own shitty evening to notice what was wrong with this scenario. 

Maybe she should have clued in earlier. Maybe the near-silence coming from below while they’d been descending the stairs should have been enough for her to realize that things were amiss. She paused in the doorway, her eyes refusing to really register what was wrong with what she was seeing.

For once, Elfo was faster on the draw than she was. “I don’t think they can anymore…” His voice was soft, with that note of distress she was used to hearing from him whenever they were in trouble. And yeah, this was some big trouble. 

They couldn’t look alive. Not now, not like this. The majority of her partygoers had been unfortunate enough to be speared through with the Vikings’ weapons and there didn’t look to be many survivors. Even the inconsequential ones, like the servants who had been bringing out snacks… most of them were there too. Maybe some of them had escaped - there was no sign of the knights and she wasn’t sure if they’d been somehow disposed of before Bean had arrived or if they’d run off, either to escape or fetch their weapons. 

Either way, there was no one else here to back her up. The prudent thing to do in the face of a murderous Viking hoard would have been to hightail it out of there and let them have the place. It wasn’t like she was that attached to it…

But Bean had never been one to take the easy way either. It was either a fault or one of her strengths. Instead of running, she stepped forward, heedless, unthinking, and snagged the sword lodged in the chest of a nearby guest. It slid free in her hand with a wet splatter of blood and entrails across her boots as she brandished it. She’d think about that part later... if there was a later. Her head snapped up, eyes fixed on the Vikings still dragging the bodies of the party-goers, her former subjects, and she charged forward heedlessly.

To her side, she was mildly aware of Elfo snatching up a dagger and running to match her, as fast as his short legs would take him. There was the audible whoosh of a fire nearby and then Luci emerged into the fray, holding up a lit bottle of alcohol that cast his shadow large against the wall behind him. She had a brief surge of relief at seeing him, though she’d been pretty sure he had to be alive. He couldn’t really be killed, could he? And she felt like she would have known, somehow, if he’d been badly hurt. Still, she was glad to see him.

And as shitty as Elfo had been to her earlier, she was still relieved to know that he had her back. Even if it was a fight that was certain to get them all killed, they’d be doing it together. That meant something… more than she was ready to admit to, just yet. Her voice was loud in her own ears, a ringing cry of rage. She’d had enough. This whole evening had been leading to this, disappointment piled upon disappointment. How hard had she tried? Not only hadn’t she gotten a laid, gotten a date… even gotten a goddamned _dance_ , she now had to deal with some assholes who decided to murder her entire guest list? Fuck that, as Luci would have said.

You could only push a princess so far and blatant homicide at her very first - and probably very last - party was that tipping point.

She stabbed her sword into the side of a nearby Viking, glad that she’d been learning how to use it ever since she was small. Before Derek was born, she’d even been fairly good at it, back when her dad - and his personal knights - had been bothered to even try to teach her the blade. Everything she’d learned of actual sword fighting had come from that and from her futzing about on her own whenever she could sneak away. But it was her knowledge of hand to hand fighting, learned from her years of underhanded bar brawls, that was her most useful weapon here. She didn’t care to play fair, to listen to the rules of chivalry. All that mattered was winning, no matter how. So she aimed for ankles, for crotches, for all the weak points she could exploit and she knew many. 

She wasn’t sure how her boys were faring, but she hoped they were holding their own… or at the very least, that they weren’t dying. But if they had to die, maybe this wouldn’t be the worst way to go, at least it was more exciting than the slow descent into madness that would be her eventual existence if her dad and his cronies had their way with her life. 

They were making some progress, she thought, more than she had expected. The Vikings had been caught off-guard, not expecting any resistance. If she’d only had a few more people, a few more weapons… a shield, anything. Maybe then, they could have made it.

Instead, she felt the bump of Elfo near her leg as he crowded in close, bereft of his dagger. Luci was spitting smoke and fury, more catlike than she’d ever seen him, but ultimately without any real claws. The Vikings closed in a circle around them, united. They were outnumbered. Outgunned. If she’d been struck in all-out battle, she’d have gone down fighting but not like this…

If she’d gotten this far, maybe there was some other way out?

Bean grimaced. They weren’t moving to immediately dispatch her the way they had the other partygoers and from the corner of her eye she could see the leader, the man who’d been in her bed not ten minutes ago. He had his eye on her. Bean let out a sharp breath, coloured by her momentary defeat, and threw the blade to the floor.


	3. Chapter 3

Instead of running her through, they looked to their leader who was moving up the dais to seat himself in her father’s throne. He’d had his ass in that chair earlier in the evening, back when Elfo had tried to chew him out, dismayed at his presumption. The man had looked a lot better to her then. Now the sight of his nearly bare chest and the glistening of sweat across his abs just made her that much angrier. Why did she have to run into so many good looking assholes?

The three of them were nudged toward the throne, pushed down to their knees as if they’d willingly bow to the man. Bean wanted to glower and say something that would have probably gotten her head sliced off unceremoniously, but she thought better of it after a second of looking at him there. He was as overconfident as her father and probably stupider… 

The bitterness was sitting sharp and strong in her chest. “I don’t get why you’d want to take over this shoddy kingdom anyway.” There were probably more wise ways to react to this takeover… like not poking the bear, but she was hard-pressed to find the patience to actually do any of them. “We’re broke! This castle’s not even made of real stone! It’s particle stone!” She knocked on the step to the dais in indication and a portion of it crumbled off. 

Her tactless words might have actually convinced someone to give up on this takeover. Someone with more of an eye for riches. But not so, Sven. “Vikings don’t care about riches! We want immortality! That our names might live on for a hundred years. We must have the Elixir of Life!”

Behind them, there were steps at the door that she recognized. She knew them all too well. They were followed immediately by the accompanying voice of Zog’s royal messenger. “Hear ye! Hear ye! The return of King Zog is imminent!” The man intoned, deadpan as ever. “Please do not shoot the messenger… anymore.” She was amazed he was alive to enter the room, much less talk. Then the realization hit… what he’d said and what it meant. This was definitely not a situation she wanted her dad to come home to… this disaster of a party.

“Oh god, my dad’s going to kill us!” She hesitated at that, brows furrowed at the second realization “And then the Vikings are going to kill my dad…” she muttered, more distressed about that fact than she probably should have been, considering how Zog treated her most of the time...

“Hey, at least Elfo’s sad.” Luci piped up. He didn’t look happy, exactly, but he certainly wasn’t going to miss out on one last opportunity to be an asshole either. “Look at his lip quiver!”

Bean’s eyes did dart to Elfo then and he was pretty sad looking. He stood there, not even at eye level with her on her knees. He was still so ridiculous looking in this ‘fancy’ outfit for this party. At the moment he looked about as miserable as someone could get, which was fair enough considering they were all about to die. She didn’t feel bad for yelling at him earlier… he’d had it coming… but it was pretty sad that they were going to die and the last moment she was going to have with her new friend - one of her only two friends she’d ever had, really - was the two of them fighting over a stupid party.

She dipped her eyes just a second, eyes wrinkling around the edges in thought. This couldn’t really be it, right? There had to be something else she could do... 

“There’s only one thing left to do...” She said, softly enough that it was meant only for demon and elf ears. She could see Elfo jolt from the corner of her eye, hear the slight hopeful catch in his throat, and she couldn’t help a little smile. At least someone trusted her… though she wasn’t sure what he was going to think of this crazy plan she had in mind. She straightened up a little from the position of supplication and the Viking behind her let her, after a sharp gesture from their leader. “I’m switching teams,” She stated, this time loudly. She hoped it sounded convincing.

To her side, Luci chortled. She didn’t have to see it to know the toothy grin he had on his face. “I called it!” He crowed out, though not loudly enough to risk agitating the still blood-hungry marauders taking up residence in the castle. “Knew it by the pants!”

She had no idea what the hell he was talking about. This was her normal garb, and Vikings didn’t even /wear/ pants, but that wasn’t important anyway. She moved to stand and this time no one tried to stop her. “I’m joining forces with our savage conquerors!”

As she stepped forward, still halfway expecting a spear in the back, the man on the throne shook his head at his men, waved them away with a confident swish of his hand. She remembered how it felt against her skin, warm leather scraping roughly across her side, and she wondered whether it wouldn’t have been a better plan to actually be willing to go through with this. At least she wouldn’t get in trouble with her dad if he got murdered by Vikings.

But no… she couldn’t. He was still her dad and if she wasn’t going to murder him to get out of an arranged marriage, she wasn’t going to like it if some jerkass Vikings murdered him either. She smiled as Sven waved the other Vikings away when they might have interfered and she could tell from his expression that he was still interested. Maybe he’d been just as worked up and horny earlier as she had. Well, she could use it to her advantage now.

As she approached him, moving to sit on his leg with the most appealing ‘sexy’ smile she could muster, she could hear Elfo behind her, letting out a small whimper. Luci made a sound too, somewhere between a snort and a chuckle. She could picture both of their expressions as she wrapped an arm around Sven’s neck, leaning in as the man crowed a little, sitting up straighter. He was wrapped up in his victory, the sexy fool. Bean pressed a kiss to his lips that would have been so much more fun not half an hour ago. “Your majesty.”

“Ah… now we’re talking!” He said, his big hand settled against Bean’s waist. “We shall rule together, as tyrant and tyrantina” He kissed her back with some gusto and Bean spared a moment to wonder if there were other Vikings out there who might turn out to be less assholes than Sven and his Land Vikings. It was a fleeting thought though.

  
There was the sound of small cobbled feet moving on the stone floor of the throne room and she knew immediately who it was. No Viking had shoes that made that sound. Her suspicion was confirmed as she heard Elfo’s small, high voice piping up. There was a note of sadness to his words and she wondered if it was regret or if he was really just feeling guilty.

“If this is what you want Bean, I won’t stand in your way.” Elfo said and Bean almost smiled. It was a little late, especially considering she could have been getting some a lot earlier… before all the murder and rampaging. Elfo was unaware of her thoughts, continuing with his sad little speech, voice choked up for a moment. “I wish you all the gumdrops in the rainbow.”

Gumdrops. Okay. She could probably work with that. She did still have a plan she was trying to unfold here. She’d need a little bit of help to pull it off though and Elfo was presenting her with the opening she needed, however awkward. She remembered her dad sitting in that same spot as Sven, only a day earlier, being nearly as big of a jerk. What worked to incapacitate a king would work as well on a Viking right? Plus, it might actually work to get rid of all of them at once… if only she could get them to actually buy that what she was offering was the actual Elixir of Life.

But they’d never found it before and they were stupid… she could work with it.

“Thanks, Elfo.” She said, too loudly, giving Elfo a wink to try and clue him in on her plan. “And when those gumdrops get stuck in our throats, as they inevitably will… we shall wash them down with the Elixir of Life. Which we totally have.” That was all Sven wanted, wasn’t it? Immortality? He was just like her dad. Bean turned her head as she spoke, continuing to work at Elfo, trying to convey her message.

If they wanted the Elixir of Life… they’d get it. But it wasn’t going to be what they were hoping for… just a taste of their own medicine.

Or… it would be if Elfo would just get the point already. He just stared at her, blinking slowly as she gestured, again and again. 

_Get it. C’mon, Elfo… please just get it..._

  
Her eye was starting to get sore and she was pretty sure the look Sven was starting to give her was because he thought she had some kind of nervous tick, but what else could she do? Then… finally… Elfo perked up, eyes brightening in realization.

Sven seemed to be none the wiser, even with all the far too obvious winking going on. He sat up straight, one hand clenched into a fist, his voice ringing and confident. “This shoddy kingdom will be ours forever.” That big Viking hand slid to her shoulder as Sven met her eyes with a broad smile. “Eternity shall remember the names of Sven and...uh..” His words faltered for a second and it occurred to both of them at the same time that he hadn’t even bothered to learn this much about her. 

Somehow he seemed less sexy, in just the span of a few seconds. She wasn’t exactly expecting every guy she hooked up with to know her name - heck, given the difficulty she had in finding guys willing to hook up with her, it was to her benefit if they didn’t - but he’d put forth kind of a minimum of effort at trying to win her over. It was a lot less endearing when she was starting to sober up. “Bean.” She supplied.

The look on his face made her want to laugh… or maybe punch him in the jaw. He was staring at her as if she was the strange one here. His voice was a little smaller, eyes scrunched at the edges like he was trying to figure out if she was lying to him or not. “Really?”

Like Sven was that great of a name? Bean had to work to keep the smile plastered on her face. There’d be time for getting back at assholes later. Preferably when they didn’t have free run of the castle while her dad was on the way home to an inevitable fit of rage. Later, she reminded herself.

With everyone on board and everything set up for her strike against Sven and his land Vikings, all Bean had to do was finally close the trap around them. She slid from Sven’s lap, looking at him with her most seductive expression. “My tyrant… we should go and avail ourselves of the Elixir of Life now.”

She could see Luci off to one side, rolling his eye over her flowery speech but she didn’t care. It was flattering to Sven and she could tell that it was working by the way he puffed out his attractive, mostly-bare chest and finally pushed to his feet. “That’s right. Let us go.” He held out his hand for Bean and she took it, tugging him, watching the other Vikings carefully as she made her way to the door. Elfo padded along beside her, keeping a short distance between himself and Sven.

Luci hopped up onto her shoulder, claws digging into her shirt as he steadied himself. He darted a quick glance at Sven, standing on Bean’s opposite side and then whispered in Bean’s ear in a low hiss. “Good job, Bean. They’re all falling for it.”

She looked over her shoulder to see that the entire contingent of Vikings had followed along instead of some of them choosing to stay behind to guard the throne room. Good. She’d been hoping that they’d be stupid and short-sighted enough that they wouldn’t be able to wait to get their share of the “Elixir”. Her plan was all going according to… well… plan.

As they reached the courtyard, she realized the sign was still there, above the fountain. She didn’t think Vikings could read, but she was quick to snatch it down anyway, tossing it into the water. At this distance, the muddy rancid water was even worse smelling than it had been in the glass for her dad. Bean could only hope that their current trend if idiocy would hold because otherwise she and her companions were probably going to wind up dead too. “Behold, guys! The Elixir of Life!”

Sven was first to the front, grabbing the ladle, and Bean felt her fingers twitch, tension vibrating through her. So close… But as the Viking leader raised the dripping ladle to his mouth, he paused. Bean flinched internally as she saw the way his nose wrinkled and his expression shifted, eyes narrowing. That wasn’t good. He was looking at the open water of the fountain and was clearly the most intelligent of the entire group since he finally asked what should have been an obvious question. “Why are there so many dead things floating in the Elixir of Life?”

Right. Good question. Except that it was on the verge of ruining Bean’s plan. She smiled though, even wider. “A little bug never hurt anyone.” A careful non-answer.

“What about that squirrel?” These Vikings were being jerks and making it really hard for Bean to just poison them already and get this night over with. She had to be polite to Sven to avoid a bit of extra murder, but this loser… well…

Elfo stepped in, saving Bean from potentially losing the rather tentative hold she had on her temper. All she could do was stare down at him, an awkward little green thing with a smile that was too forced to ever be mistaken for real. He had the Vikings’ attention now but as much as she liked Elfo - when he wasn’t being a tiny jackass toward her - she didn’t have the highest confidence in him being able to lie to these men. She could do nothing but watch and hope that he actually knew what he was doing.

“Oh!” He said, and perhaps the sheer cuteness of something that tiny in such a silly outfit would be diverting enough to distract from what he was actually saying, “That’s my pet squirrel! Bloaty!”

Her own lies had been almost as transparent, but this was the one where Sven was getting suspicious. “Wait a minute.” He scowled down at the diminutive elf. “You named your pet squirrel Bloaty, before he died and got all bloated?”

“And your name is Sven and you’re a Viking. So we’re all a little obvious here, aren’t we?” The speed of that - admittedly polite - snapback caught even Bean off guard and she couldn’t help the twitch of a smile at the corners of her lips. “C’mon! Drink up!”

“Hold on. I didn’t become regional manager of the land Vikings by drinking any old liquid.” Sven cast his gaze over his men, all of whom were holding back and waiting for him to make a decision. Then he looked at the wooden ladle, eyes narrowed. “How do I know this is not a trick?” His attention was on Elfo and Bean swallowed a little, expecting him to cave.

“C-cause I told you?” Elfo was so bad at lying... And here was a situation where their lives might depend on his ability to lie. If the situation had been a little less dire, she might have enjoyed watching him squirm for a moment, it was fair, right? Bean dug her buck teeth into her lower lip as Elfo hesitated again under Sven’s judgment, wilting a bit as the Viking held the ladle out to him. “Showed you… I have to show you…”

And he did. That was the part that really caught Bean off-guard. She’d been so busy being angry at him for what he’d done that she’d forgotten he could actually put effort into being a friend. Maybe he was doing it to save his own hide… but given their past interactions, she thought there was a little bit of justified guilt in all this too. Elfo was downtrodden as he took the ladle, fishing it into the water for a few long seconds before raising it to his lips.

“Well… here’s to seeing the sunrise another day.” In the second or two before he actually swallowed the stuff, his eyes flitted to Bean and she softened for a moment, despite the tension of the situation and their earlier argument. She offered him a small smile. Reassurance.

Then Elfo closed his eyes, tipped the water back and drank it without any aplomb.

Bean almost gagged herself. Between the stench and the dead insects, she didn’t envy Elfo what he was having to do. She might have spit it out, if it were her. But he swallowed hard, eyes watering a little and his voice choked and high. “See! It’s totally fine!”

Sven leaned forward a little, skeptical of the display. “Are you turning green? Or were you already green?” Then the vestiges of intelligent thought he’d shown earlier evaporated and he shoved Elfo to the side on his way to the fountain. “Bah! I’ll have plenty of time to consider things when I’m immortal!” Sven filled the ladle to the brim with stinking fountain water and began to drink. His men flocked in around him, not waiting for access to the ladle at all.

Elfo staggered back where he’d been shoved and Bean leaned down, her hands catching at his slender shoulders and guiding him to lean back against her leg. He tipped his head to look at her, on the verge of heaving but trying to keep it down. “Bean…” he mumbled, soft and tremulous. His fingers twitched, hands almost going to cover his mouth. He was greener than usual, she was pretty sure, a drooping green weight in her hands. “I’m sorry.” His breath came, sharp and hitched. “This is my fault.”

The words were almost lost under the din of an entire band of Vikings loudly slurping away at rancid water. Bean heard them though. She gave Elfo’s shoulders a soft squeeze. Gratitude. There was more to be said, but now was not the time. When it came right down to it, she still wasn’t even sure they’d be able to pull this off.

It wasn’t until she heard the loud gurgle coming from the stomachs of the nearest Vikings that she was able to relax slightly. There was only one easily reachable bathroom facility that the Vikings were likely to know the location of. They could have ruined all of her plans simply by choosing to go on the ground instead of trying to find a civilized way to relieve their bacteria-infested bowels, but the way they belted up the stairs had Bean rushing to catch up. 

As she darted for the stairwell, she snagged Elfo up in the crook of one arm and the nearby bucket in her other hand, just in case. The bouncing as she ascended the steps, two by two, made the elf tucked against her groan and whine the entire trip up, but she had to be there to ensure the plan succeeded.

By the time she - and the ill Vikings - reached the throne room itself, Luci was somehow already there, sitting beside the throne in his most casual pose. Bean slowed her steps as she got out in front of the Vikings, holding the door to the throne room open and ushering them inside with a casual wave of her hand. “Right this way,” she called out, as sweetly as she could manage, then, as they were distracted, holding their stomachs in their mad dash for the port-o-potty, she yelled to the waiting demon, “Luci! Pull the lever!”

There was a certain satisfaction to watching a bunch of rampaging, queasy Vikings falling one by one into the trapdoor. She could kind of understand why her dad took such delight in dropping people out of it. Given everything she’d been put through, being denied a dance or a lay and then having to deal with Sven’s arrogance and his murder of all of her guests, it was good to see him finally get something he deserved.

Yet as she approached the open trapdoor, he was the only one still hanging on. Just like most of the guys who’d courted her who were actually men she weren’t interested in because they were old or creepy or just looking to marry her for her position, he was proving to be persistent right until the end.

“Bean! Bean!!” He called up to her. Maybe if he’d actually been polite about it, she would have spared a moment to listen. He was still pretty attractive, for all that he was an asshole. And yet… he seemed insistent on reminding her why she’d decided to poison him with bad water to begin with. “Grab my hand!” As your future husband, I demand it!”

So. That was how it was?

A smile curled on Bean’s lips and it wasn’t a pleasant one. No one could ‘demand’ things of her. Even her dad only got away with it because he was king and she couldn’t technically do anything to him. Bean dropped to one knee beside the trapdoor and maybe Sven could see the danger in her eyes, or maybe it was just the fact that Luci pressed a hammer into her hand and he was just not starting to realize that he was actually in trouble. Either way, his tone changed. No longer a sexy, rough, rumble but a higher-pitched plea for mercy. “Please! Don’t hammer my fingers!”

It wasn’t even an apology. 

She wasn’t used to getting apologies from the men in her life, it was true. They just did whatever jerk things they wanted, made decisions about her without thinking or caring about what she wanted or needed. Her entire life, thus far, had been a running parade of such men, starting with her dad and including pretty much every man she’d run across in her life who’d shown even the slightest interest. It was part of the reason it was so frustrating to have it happen again and again. It was tiresome. Couldn’t they just treat her like a person? Someone who actually had their own dreams and goals and wasn’t just some princess?

There was a soft sound from the room behind her, one she would have missed if it wasn’t coming from such a familiar source. She softened a little, recognizing the sound of a very ill elf.

Well. Maybe not everyone.

She was still pretty mad about him interrupting her, about his disregard… but most of all for treating her like every other man in her life… like he could dictate who she was or what she did. He wasn’t supposed to be her nanny. He was supposed to be her friend.

And he had been. At least… when it counted. He’d put aside his personal feelings and for once - /for once in her goddamn life/ - had uttered the words she’d been wanting to hear. ‘If this is what you want.’ Considering the cesspit of misogyny that was Dreamland and pretty much all of the surrounding areas, it was a breath of fresh air she hadn’t even really realized she needed.

Then he’d found a way to make good on the apology by helping her out. And while some small part of her kind of considered that maybe Elfo deserved a little bit of payback for being a jerk, in the manner of having a bellyache for the next day or two, she was still trying to be generous. It wasn’t like most guys had the guts to admit they were wrong. Hell, Sven was dangling from his fingertips and at her mercy and he still wasn’t even apologizing.

She couldn’t help but scoff a little. He’d beg but he wouldn’t even give her the slightest consideration? That was somehow worse than the pillaging and murder he’d been doing. “Look at you,” she said, leaning down so he could get a good look at her face and know just how serious she was being at the moment. “You’re just a coward like every other guy except that guy over there.” She turned her head to look at Elfo, who was now draped over the bucket and heaving. “...with his head in a bucket.”

Elfo, miserable and sick though he might have been, was aware enough of her that he gave her a thumbs-up before promptly retching again. Oh well.

Bean might have continued on about why she considered a strong, admittedly reckless, Viking was more of a coward than a weak little elf, how it had something to do with being able to admit when you were in the wrong, or realizing that you needed to treat people - women, even - with some respect, but she didn’t think he’d ever catch on and the longer she let him dangle, the crueler it seemed to be. Better to just get it over with.

Besides, in the words of the royal herald, “King Zog’s return was imminent”. She didn’t have time to waste on bozos like this. Instead of using the hammer to smash Sven’s fingers, she just pried them loose one by one. The entire Viking kit and caboodle slid free and began to fall, but not before her almost-hookup had one last misogynistic complaint to hurl at her ears.

“This is why you’re still single!”

Well. Maybe. As eager as she’d been to get laid, maybe she /did/ still have some standards. She wasn’t sure that was actually a bad thing.

Luci was chuckling beside her, his small black body vibrating with amusement and - dare she say - joy. This kind of mayhem was what demons lived for. “I can’t believe you just sent so many people to their deaths!” He sounded almost proud.

Bean frowned at that. “They’re not going to die. They’ll just all fall into the ocean-”

No sooner had the words escaped her lips then she heard a series of dull thuds from far down below. She threw a quick glance at the trapdoor, wondering if she needed to look through it to verify what she already knew. She might have been roaring drunk and out of it most of the time but she was the princess of a seaside kingdom and she knew how the water worked. “-oh.” She concluded that thought. “It’s low tide…”

She could have focused on the fact that she’d just inadvertently murdered about ten Vikings and tried to justify it. They’d murdered a lot of people… they’d been trying to kill her and her friends… but that was a can of worms she didn’t even want to touch right now. Besides, there was definitely a more important thing to be thinking about.

“We have to get this cleaned up!” She had no idea where to start. Now that she wasn’t being faced with the actual Vikings trying to off her and her companions, the magnitude of what had happened here was finally starting to sink in. There were dead bodies all over the place, not to mention all the spilled food and the garbage strewn around from the actual party. They had to get rid of it. Now. Before her father returned and realized what they were up to. Bean didn’t fancy the idea of following her would-be future husband in his plummet down to the dry beach.

She was scrambling toward the open doors to the throne room when Odval showed up. He must have heard the commotion from wherever he’d been hiding out. It took only a brief glance for her to realize that she really /really/ didn’t want to know what he’d been up to. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him naked before - the downside of the royal baths being a public location for the higher up members of the castle - but she didn’t want to see it. 

He was giving her a look like he felt the same way. Then he cleared his throat. “You don’t have to tell me what happened up here if I don’t have to tell you what happened down there.”

“Deal!” She waved him off. “Just help me clean up!”

Odval began to take care of some of the cleanup while Bean rushed away. “You take care of the bodies!” She panted to Luci and Elfo as she started picking up the garbage left from the party. She looked around, trying to find someplace, /any place/ to throw it where Zog wouldn’t find it immediately. The castle trash heap was too far away to be of any help and she didn’t have any servants on hand who could make trips down there quickly. Her gaze fell across the still open trap door and she grinned to herself. 

That’d work.

She shoveled spilled food and party decorations through the hole. With luck, Zog wouldn’t look out the trapdoor himself before high tide rolled in and carried away all the evidence of her wrongdoing. She had no idea what Luci and Elfo were doing with the bodies, but when she darted her eyes in their general direction, they seemed to have cleared out most of the mess. 

Bean made a beeline for the door, needing something to clean up the remaining blood and guts still strewn about. She didn’t have to go far though. Odval had apparently anticipated this and he stood there, half-dressed now, with a bucket of water and a rag dangling from his fingers.

Sure. He wouldn’t wipe down the floors himself, but he’d get her a bucket? Well, better than not having it, at least. 

She’d never cleaned a floor, so she was clumsy as she dropped to her knees beside the nearest puddle of blood and tried to swipe it up with the wet rag. Elfo came up beside her, taking the rag from her hand and darting her a smile. “Here Bean… I can do that…” He still looked a little greener around the gills than usual, but he was definitely more experienced with this kind of manual labor. He made much quicker work of cleaning than she would have expected.

“Thanks, Elfo.” She murmured back. “If we get out of this without dying-” She wasn’t sure how she was going to finish the sentence. Saying that they’d have a talk about things didn’t actually sound that encouraging and there was really nothing else she could offer.

“Yeah.” Elfo ducked his head to his task, deliberately not looking at her. “Yeah.”

Bean let out a breath, relieved to not have to finish that thought. No time, just work. She tore down the last of the decorations, rolling up the banner they’d set up and chucking it out with the rest. In the background, she could hear the herald calling out again, letting them know that Zog had entered the courtyard. So close, but maybe they could still pull it off.

She looked over everything quickly before she felt mostly satisfied that it wasn’t too obvious what had been going on. And if she could only keep her dad distracted, or get him in a good mood and then start plying him with booze until he wasn’t paying much attention to the small details… then she might actually be able to get away with it.

Zog entered only a couple of minutes later, to a lineup of people waiting to greet him. Odval’s presence gave this whole thing a bit more of an air of authority since her dad would never suspect him of getting involved in some kind of juvenile party. She wasn’t sure they hadn’t overdone it though, as Zog paused just inside the doorway. “It’s clean.” He mumbled and she could tell he was mostly talking to himself. “And there are people here to greet me.”

Bean took it as her cue. “Welcome home, father.” She said, as convincingly innocent as she could manage. She was expecting him to say something, to be more suspicious, but he just shuffled toward his throne. 

“I’m going to sit in my throne and rule my kingdom, which was most assuredly not overthrown by marauders.”

Zog did talk to himself rather frequently but this was a bit odd even for him. She frowned a little. “Are you okay?”

“I had a stroke on the way home,” Zog muttered. Bean frowned a little at that, but her dad seemed to be mostly fine except for the talking to himself, so maybe it wasn’t that bad. Either way, it looked like she was in the clear. Relief flooded through her.

“With your permission, father,” She tried to be deferential. “I’d like to take my leave. Go to bed. You know… like a normal person.” As her father stared at her, she started to back slowly toward the door, catching hold of Elfo’s hand and Luci’s tail on the way and dragging them along with her.

Once they were out of the throne room, she sagged in relief. “I can’t believe we got away with that…” She picked up Elfo, a little gingerly since she wasn’t sure if he was still feeling pukey from the drinking of the bad water. He seemed like he had a better constitution than her actual dad did because he just squeaked and hiccuped slightly in response to being lifted. 

Hauling him and Luci up the stairs, she paused for a moment as she saw the sky from outside one of the windows. It wasn’t light yet, but it was threatening to get there any minute. What a night… it had flown past, really. At the same time, it had felt like forever.

Was it sunrise already?

This hadn’t gone at all how she’d expected… she hadn’t gotten what she was hoping for. Maybe it was for the best that she hadn’t hooked up with Sven but it didn’t mean she wasn’t still aching for it. At the moment though, she felt tired, a bit strung-out, but oddly satisfied. At least she knew her friends had her back… that was what made this different from so many other nights coming home from a failed binge.

She caught sight of Elfo’s face from the corner of her eye and he looked like he was going to pass out. Maybe the worst part of his drinking the bad water was over. “Hey… Elfo… you hanging in there?” She murmured.

“Yeah…” He mumbled. He smelled like sweat and blood and vomit. Nothing good. Under that was the faint sweet scent of warm candy that was more familiar to him. He turned his head away for a second, biting his lip before meeting Bean’s eyes. “I’m sorry about-”

“Hey.” She cut him off. “Shut up.” Not now. Not this. It wasn’t a good time to drag up all those thoughts and feelings. She had a lot to think about and she didn’t want to do it right now. She just needed a little longer to enjoy her small victory at pulling one over on her dad. He fell silent and she could sense the confusion radiating off of him. She let out a breath in a slow sigh, drawing to a halt at the top of the stairs and moving to set him down. Luci jumped down as well, looking at the two of them with a narrow-eyed stare.

“If you two are going to start talking about feelings, I’m going to gag.” He said blankly and Bean shook her head. The demon didn’t seem to believe her though because he threw his small black paws to the air and then padded off toward her room, presumably to delve into Bean’s secret book booze.

His absence left her alone with Elfo, and with the potential of a conversation she wasn’t prepared to have. There was nothing for it but to completely change the subject in an effort to avoid the ‘feelings’ discussion that had so disgusted Luci. “Let’s…” She faltered, then doubled down. “Let’s go outside.” She gestured toward the nearby balcony and Elfo considered for a few seconds while Bean was worried that he was going to actually insist on talking or apologizing again.

Instead, he simply said, “Okay.”

-

It was more relaxing than she expected, sitting out in the open air while the salty sea-breeze blew across her, stirring her hair. They were so high up above the ocean. She could really see it when they were actually at this vantage point. Usually by this time of day she was either in the process of trying to crawl back into the castle without being caught or she was already passed out… either in her own bed or in some random tavern.

She’d never actually watched a sunrise before. It sounded like the kind of useless sappy thing that people only did in stories. 

“It’s beautiful.” She murmured and Elfo let out a soft sigh beside her.

“Yeah.”

The rest of the words never emerged and Bean was grateful for the opportunity to just sit and rest and enjoy the spectacle unfolding in front of her. The sky turned yellow just above the ocean, the colour bleeding into a brilliant blue as it spread higher and higher into the sky. It was like a painting, a moving painting.

Luci’s paws were almost silent behind her, but she felt him approaching as much as she heard it. He hopped up onto the balcony, on the side opposite from Elfo and plopped himself into a seated position beside her. He didn’t say anything. If he thought there was something special or beautiful about the sunrise, she wasn’t sure about it. If she tried, maybe she could read into his responses the way he could so easily read into hers with their soul bond.

She didn’t have the energy for that though. Reaching over, she brushed her hand against Elfo’s shoulder. He was so quiet, so low-key, that she wasn’t sure if he was feeling sick, upset or… some other way. “Hey.” She offered him a smile. An attempt at reassurance. “At least you got to watch the sunrise with a girl.” At least one of them was getting something they wanted… kind of. “Sorry it’s just me.”

Elfo smiled a little, raising his hand to brush against hers where it sat on his shoulder. Patted it softly. His gaze softened, became contemplative. “Yeah.” He murmured back and there was that hopeful tone again, finally. She was relieved to hear it. “Who knows. Maybe someday you’ll get your wish too.” 

Maybe.

Bean wasn’t sure if that meant her desire to hook up with a hot guy - or even a moderately attractive guy who didn’t have the plague - or if he meant something else. They’d talked about wishes in the past… things that meant more to her than simply getting laid. With the disappointment of the evening, she expected to be more desperate for the distraction that sex could provide… but instead, she felt a kind of zen. It was a weird sort of clarity.

It might have been worth it to try watching another sunrise… if she could ever drag herself out of bed early enough. Her dad’s voice emerged from down in the throne room, an angry snarl that she couldn’t quite make out and didn’t care to try. He wasn’t going to ruin the sunrise for her. There’d be plenty of time to deal with the shittiness of her life later on.

In the meantime, she curled her arm around Elfo’s shoulder, drawing him into a one-armed hug and just enjoying the warmth and presence of someone else. She didn’t have to say anything. She didn’t have to do anything.

For once, she could just exist right now, in this moment, and let the rest of the world happen all around her.

Just Bean and her friends. Together. 

-


End file.
